https://newrepublic.com/article/185468/big-oil-reckless-endangerment-climate-change
Prosecuting fossil fuel executives for reckless endangerment could help millions of victims of climate change–related disasters get justice.
Our world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place. One study recently found that extreme heat killed nearly 50,000 people in Europe last year. A single county in the United States—Maricopa County, in Arizona—reported 645 such deaths. Eye-popping sea surface temperatures are fueling a historically destructive hurricane season this summer, and lethal, record-breaking storms are lashing states from Texas to Vermont. In California, the climate-driven Park fire continues to burn a path of devastation that has left hundreds homeless, including numerous survivors of previous wildfires—people who have now lost their homes multiple times.
These aren’t “natural” disasters. 2023’s summer heat waves, for example, would have been “virtually impossible,” in one research team’s words, without human-caused climate change. That means these disasters are being driven by particular corporate actors—and particularly Big Oil companies. These companies, by generating a substantial portion of the greenhouse gas emissions that have warmed the planet, while simultaneously deceiving the public about the dangers of those emissions, have created a crisis that is putting millions of Americans at risk.
…
Two weeks ago, over 1,000 survivors of climate disasters sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice calling on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “investigate the fossil fuel industry for climate-related crimes.” One of the signers, Allen Myers, said that the wildfire that burned down his family’s home “bore the fingerprints of the climate crisis” and stressed that the “fossil fuel industry knows that what they’re doing is dangerous.”
…
Big Oil remains the greatest obstacle to climate action. Earlier this month the United Nations warned that fossil fuel companies are still running “a massive mis- and disinformation campaign” to delay our transition to safer energy sources. In other words, these offenses are ongoing, and the prosecutors and public safety officials charged with protecting us from criminal harm have an obligation to prosecute Big Oil executives for their reckless endangerment of the public.
https://newrepublic.com/article/185468/big-oil-reckless-endangerment-climate-change